smother
by limegreenwordmachine
Summary: He never thought he'd have to ask himself whether he loved her enough to let her die.


**First SNK story. I kind of hate myself for writing this. It just sort of spilled out of me over about six hours. I listened to a lot of Vienna Teng while I wrote it, if you like to listen to music to understand the mood.**

It takes less than a second to shatter her world.

She hears Eren call out, that ragged, desolate scream that always rips her in two, and she turns quick to map his location. _Don't lose focus_ is the mantra drilled into her by years of training, and in a split second she triages the situation and realizes there's nothing she can do; she can't get distracted now, with this one on her heels, but by the time she turns around there's a great ghastly hot hand and it knocks the wind out of her more completely than anything else ever has; her bones compress and her nose cracks and her gear rattles and then she's hurtling in the opposite direction, and what's there to meet her is a tree.

The moment of impact is compression. It's being squished into the tiniest space imaginable, so tiny that she forgets entirely about herself and _Mikasa Ackerman_ is gone, and instead there's only sensation. And then there's nothing.

../../..

There were only maybe three of them, and they're all taken down, and there are fewer deaths than there's been in a long time. Levi is feeling a strange easing of tension, because they've emerged on the other side and maybe they'll be able to come back to the walls with most of their party this time.

There's a gaggle of shell-shocked newbies hovering around the base of a tree nearby. He expends a quick burst of fuel to go tell them to break it up, because even an _absolute idiot_ knows you keep moving. You don't hover around the dead. You don't stop to investigate. You get the fuck outta dodge.

But when he gets closer, one of them – Krista, the sweet short one – looks up, and her bottom lip is trembling and her eyes are swimming. She's a tough little wench, hypersensitive to others' needs, but she usually bites it back and doesn't cry. And when he meets other sets of eyes – Ymir's, cold and silent, and Jean's face so red and wet and contorted as he leans over someone on the ground, he gets the gut-dropping sensation that something fundamental has shifted.

"Get back, Kirschtein." Jean remains in place, shaking. "I said get back," Levi snarls, physically shoving the taller boy aside to examine the body.

It's Mikasa Ackerman. His breathing hitches as he falls to his knees and puts two fingers on her neck, feeling for a heartbeat. What he gets back is a slow, shallow pulse, and he comes closer to listen for breath. It's there. It's thin and reedy, but it's there. He rises back to his full height, and it's the most exhausting thing he's ever done. "She's alive," he says. "But barely."

Somebody moves in to grab her. "NO!" He roars. "If her back is broken" – which he is sure it is, judging by the horrible unnatural angle at which she's bent – "and you make one wrong move, you risk making it a lot worse. Get ready to move out. Get the other bodies. And get Kirschtein the hell out of here."

Jean swipes at his nose and turns his back, facing away from Levi and shaking his head. "I'm fine," he says, furiously shaking his head. "I'm functional."

"You sure as hell are not. Go find someone competent to cover your ass."

The other soldiers clank and shuffle on heavy rubber feet.

"Cut it out," Levi says evenly. "You've all seen injury before. You've seen people who are going to die. This is no different."

"So you think she's going to die, then?" Sasha's bottom lip is quivering.

He stops in his tracks, spine rigid, any number of orders or retorts flitting through his mind, but then he settles for the stark, cold horror of the truth. "Yes," he says.

../../..

His words are rough, but he and a couple squad members handle her like glass, placing her in the back of one of the wagons and surrounding her with every extra pack and bit of fabric and horse blanket, because every single one of them is silently imagining her broken body tossing around like a rag doll as the cart jolts over rough terrain. They've seen it too many times already.

And this is not just another body. Mikasa Ackerman is symbol, protector, and friend. If the prodigy of the 104th can be struck down so unceremoniously, all of this death really is hopeless.

It takes two people to hold Eren back. He's doing that tortured animal sobbing thing again, taut and straining. Armin and Connie are holding him at the waist and arms respectively, and Levi refrains from approaching until he sees Eren give up and lean back on his friends, snot running down his face. Then he draws back his hand and lets it snap like a bowstring across Jaeger's cheek, knowing it will leave a bruise for days. "Control yourself," he hisses. "You are a liability. Now go get in the wagon with her. Armin, you too. Make sure she doesn't slide around too much."

He keeps his horse neck and neck with her cart as long as he can. Eren is lying on his side, cushioning her head with one of his arms and holding her limp hand. Armin holds the other. Eren's face is starting to dry, but Armin's tears still fall fresh and fast.

Levi looks away and tries with all his might not to imagine her enshrouded body flying off the back of the wagon.

He's seen too much of young women dashed against trees.

../../..

When she wakes there's the sound of water trickling into a bucket. She turns her stiff neck to see Eren intently squeezing out a wet washrag. "You're awake," he breathes, looking up.

"Eren," she says. "What happened?"

"You had a bad accident," he says, his voice quavering. He moves to place the damp cloth on her forehead. There's not much point; she's not running a fever. Her body temperature is normal. In fact, she feels perfectly warm. But it's a simple gesture of comfort, one of the only ones he knows. "How do you feel?"

"I'm a little thirsty," she replies. "I'll be okay, Eren. Stop looking so scared. Can I have a drink of water?"

He disappears for a moment to the well outside, and she's left to stare at dust motes floating in the sunlight from the paper over the window. He returns with a small cup. "Don't try to sit up," he cautions. "Just…let me give you the water, okay? Don't move."

"Why not? I can get it myself. I'm okay." She tries to sit up and extend her arm, and is met with the horrifying realization that it's like her whole body is asleep. Numb. Her muscles won't respond. "Eren, why are you crying?!"

"Stop trying to move, Mikasa," he repeats. "Keep still and I'll give you some water." His cheeks are getting blotchy.

"I can't move," she says, trying not to sound tremulous but feeling a lump form in her throat. "I can't move."

"Open your mouth," Eren says. She complies, and he pours a small stream of water into her mouth from the wooden cup. But she can't swallow it properly and coughs, suddenly gurgling. Water enters her windpipe. Eren wraps his arms around her waist and lifts her to a sitting position, patting her back until she coughs a little back out and onto her shirt. "What's wrong with me?" she sobs.

"I don't know," he says, and brings his forehead in close to rest on hers. She can no longer tell whose tears are dripping down her nose. "I don't know, Mikasa." He tightens his arms around her, and she can feel the constant thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat under his expanding and contracting muscles. Her arms don't pulse with life like that. She's a ragdoll. Her face begins to dry, but she dry sobs bitterly.

The door opens and beams of sunlight fall on Eren and Mikasa. "Eren, I…!" Armin stops in the doorway, dizzy and dirty and weak on his feet. There's a long, bloody scratch down his face. "You're awake," he says, stumbling across the room. "Mikasa!"

"Armin, she can't move anymore," Eren says in an anguished voice.

"I was afraid of that," Armin says weakly. Mikasa tries to find words, but can think of none. Armin fills the silence by falling on his two friends with open arms and forming a protective cocoon around Mikasa. For a moment, they are as they were five years ago, keeping desolation at bay by taking shelter in each other. Then Armin pulls away and says, "I had better go find the lance corporal and tell him," and the temporary comfort breaks.

../../..

Being trapped in her mind is hell. She thought the endless despair of battle was as bad as it could get, but Mikasa underestimated what she had – the freedom to fight. To make herself useful. Now she might as well be a corpse.

Armin reads to her when he can, little tales of history and fiction she's sure he makes up and only pretends to get from books, because fairy stories are so rare in the books left. He tells about witches in the woods and young men who seek their fortunes and the hands of brides, but he never tells about brave young maidens or miracles. He knows better, so when he runs out of magic tales he moves on to facts about brick-making and commerce and other things with which she used to have the luxury to be bored. Eren can't read, so he only sits by her side and recounts the day's training exploits in a voice that bears little inflection. He brings her little savory treats to break the monotony of porridge and water, and holds her up steadily so she can swallow them. Sometimes they just sit silently, and that's the least uncomfortable.

Sasha and Krista bathe her and change her soiled linens. Her eyes burn with the humiliation of utter dependency. The two cluck and keep their voices measured, telling her it's nothing to be ashamed of, that this will all get better. None of them has any real medical knowledge, but all know that's a flat lie. All of them know the desperation can't be talked away.

Jean visits once and recounts how Connie flipped backwards off the low roof of the city hall building and landed on his feet, but when he gets to the word "back" his face goes slightly green and his hands clam up. He talks for a little while longer, rambling to fill the space, but eventually he apologetically says something about stall-mucking duty, and then turns to leave. He never sits down the whole time he's with her, wringing his hands constantly.

When she wakes up screaming in the night, Eren and Armin are always there within seconds to smooth back her hair and whisper quietly and make tea. Eren runs his thumbs across her knuckles until she can sleep again. The nightmares don't stop. Then she just stops falling asleep at all.

And in the darkest part of the space between night and morning, after her friends are gone and there's no hope of anything but hollow half-rest, she lies awake and tells herself to be strong and never give up, for Eren's sake if not for her own. Even though she wants it to _end_.

../../..

The worst one comes on the third night. She dreams about being trapped in her own decomposing body. She is still lying on the battlefield, watching her friends fall around her. Nature crawls up through her stomach and she feels worms and insects moving in her bones. When she wakes up, already hoarse, Eren has pulled her all the way onto his lap. Her forehead is slick with sweat and she gasps for breath, settling her head on his shoulder as tense as a rope pulled taut. His face is tight. He whispers about how it's just a dream, but he says it too feverishly, like he's trying to convince himself. It's damn close to daylight before he leaves. He lowers her back onto her bed and drops a barely-there kiss on the corner of her eye before shuffling back to his own bunk.

../../..

Armin stops outside the oaken office door and raps three times precisely. "It's unlocked," comes the voice from inside, and he steps over the threshold with his arms already jumping into a salute. "Don't bother with the formalities," the lance corporal says, eyes skating back and forth over a sheet of paper on the desk.

Armin stares at his boots. "I don't think we can go on like this much longer."

"Without Mikasa?" Levi throws down his pen. "Of course we can't go on like this. Half the Corps is convinced that she's humanity's real hope. They're a shambles. They lack motivation, confidence, and the cynicism to see that she's only a very talented symbol."

"Well, yes, there's that," Armin says, finding a little more strength in his voice, "but what I mean is that _Mikasa_ can't go on like this."

Levi rests his chin on his fist, quirking an eyebrow.

"She's not sleeping," Armin confesses. "She wakes up screaming. When she's alert, she just lays and stares at the ceiling. She'll never fight again, we know that much. She'll almost certainly never walk or even feed herself. For someone like her, that's devastating."

"I hope you don't expect me to give you _advice_," Levi huffs, massaging a great purple bag under his eye."

"I just want her to get some relief," Armin says.

Levi grabs his pen, scribbles something on a sheet of paper, and hands it across the desk. "Go to Squad Leader Hanji," he says.

Armin eyes the note he's been handed and immediately realizes what is being said indirectly. His eyes widen. "Thank you," he breathes, turning on his heel and leaving the shabby little office. He doesn't see Levi drop his head into his arms and sigh.

../../..

He toys with the idea of telling Eren what he wants to do, flip-flopping back and forth between _he has a right to know_ and _it would hurt him too much._ In the end he places the little vial in his back pocket and walks to Mikasa's dim room, where he finds Eren already speaking in hushed tones. Mikasa is unresponsive. She stares straight ahead, propped up on pillows. Every so often she slips down and her chin rests on her chest, and Eren has to lift her back up again just so she can remember what it's like to stare ahead instead of up. "The sun's in my eyes," she says. "It won't go away. Make it go away." She never cries anymore, but she always looks like she wants to, in her own stoic way. It makes Armin so tired.

"How long has it been since you slept?"

"Two days, seven hours, and thirty-eight minutes," she says with flat affect.

"You counted?"

"No," she says. "I made that up."

"Mikasa," he says, "Hanji gave me some very powerful sleeping medicine. It will knock you out for quite a while if you take it. Probably two days, even."

../../..

Mikasa sees Armin shift from foot to foot, and could swear his eyes are watering. And then she knows. She just knows. And slowly, she nods, and tells him it's okay.

"Eren, hold her up for me," he says, and he uncorks the little vial and pours it very carefully down her throat, taking care that she doesn't gag or sputter.

Her vision blurs within five minutes, and when she glances back at Armin again he could swear she's telling him silently that she knows what's about to happen. "Thank you, Armin," she says, voice growing dreamier. As she sinks further into drowsiness, she turns to Eren and says lightly, "You know I promised your mother I'd protect you, right?"

Eren strokes her hair, slightly confused but obliging nonetheless. "I guess I didn't know, exactly," he says softly. "I promised her the same about you."

"Well, I didn't ever stop meaning it," she says. She turns her head slowly, once more, and says, "It's okay, Armin. Thank you," trying to tell him everything she can't say out loud in front of Eren, and then yawns heavily and closes her eyes.

../../..

When the frown melts out of her features, Armin takes a long look at Eren and starts to cry. "You want the best for her, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Eren says. "What are you talking about?"

"Eren," he says. "Don't stop me. If you want her to feel better, don't stop me." And then he carefully slides a pillow out from under Mikasa's head. He places it over her face.

Horror dawns in Eren's eyes, and then he's out of his chair in a heartbeat and Armin is on the ground, head throbbing painfully. "You _bastard_!" He shouts, hovering over Armin's face. His expression is contorted in that horrible raging way that's never actually been directed at either of his best friends. "You can't be serious," he yelps, knocking Armin's breath from his lungs. "Tell me you don't mean it! Tell me it's some kind of sick joke –"

"Eren," Armin says softly. "Eren, she's suffering."

The other boy draws back to a crouch, swiping at his nose with his sleeve. "You can't just – you can't do that to her."

"She wants to die," Armin says, trying not to shout with desperation. "She'll never say it in front of you, because she promised she'd never give up. But she's lost everything. She can't even protect you anymore."

"She can stay with us," Eren sobs, "somewhere where it's safe. We'll take care of her -"

"Until what?" Armin says. "Until she wastes away? Until we die and leave her all alone? Until she can't even see or talk anymore?"

"Well-"

"Until the wall is breached and she's smothered in the rubble or plucked up to be a meal? Should we keep her around so every day she can be reminded of how she failed to do the only thing that ever mattered to her?"

Silence.

"Please, give her this last little bit of compassion," Armin says. "Let her have some dignity, Eren."

Eren buries his face in his hands.

"Love her enough to let her go," Armin says. "That's all we can do."

Still quiet, Eren stands up and grabs the sleeping girl's hand. It hasn't moved now for days, not of her volition anyway, and he and Armin stare at the callused fingers and familiar square-cut nails, the ridges and valleys beaten and weathered by blade handles and rope burn. "Do you really think she wants this?"

"She told me she did," Armin says. "She was terrified that you would hear her."

"I don't even know how to say goodbye," he says.

"We never have known," Armin replies. "No amount of warning makes it easier. It doesn't get any better." Carla Jaeger. Thomas. Marco. Mina.

This time, Eren hides his face and clenches his hands until they bleed. Armin holds the pillow down until her breathing slows past the evenness of sleep and into unconsciousness, and then until she's not breathing at all.

../../..

When there's dust blowing over the hole in the ground, Armin turns to Lance Corporal Levi, who stares straight ahead and refuses to look at the wooden box in the hole. "I still don't know if I did the right thing. If this is right, I don't want to be a good person."

"You didn't do the right thing," Levi says. "You did the merciful thing."

Armin scrubs a dry eye with the sleeve of his jacket.

"I've had to make a choice like this many times before," says Levi, "and it never gets any less disgusting."

Eren is off somewhere covering his eyes again.

Levi draws a blade and marks the spot with a big, deep X in lieu of the forthcoming grave marker. "But you have to give up your humanity and your goodness. They don't mean anything anymore. Your decisions have to be ruthlessly made based on what the people need."

"It won't feel better with time," Armin says.

"Hell, no," says Levi, already walking away.


End file.
